The ”Weird West Roleplaying Game Basic Rulebook” typifies truth in advertising. This delightfully-compact, rules-light system provides players and storytellers with enough basic standardization to play a hearty and imaginative game. The dice required are also readily available by most hobbyists and kids. The possible characters created leaves much to player drive and story-lines. Nobody needs to fill classic roles like a spell-caster, or fight, or lock-pick. Similarly, the adventure can be free-flowing to match zany or serious play. For the price of a dollar, and a regular blog posted by the game designer, this game should be on everyone’s shelf or iPad.

For play-testing purposes, my friends and I made characters for an adventure. In short summary, we had a minotaur sheriff who had a nasty penchant for cattle rustlers, an android from the future sent to the wild west time line to uncover human migration patterns and gold veins, a shovel-wielding monk who used his tool as a prop while fighting, and a barmaid/prostitute who had enigmatic magical persuasion powers. The group successfully uncovered a charlatan’s invisibility tonic than made cattle shrink rather than disappear. While touted as safe insurance against thieves, the chemist quietly made off with cattle which he later restored to normal size. Combats went quickly, and actions were made using the known modifiers. The songbird needed few magical spells, and learned more on her enchantment abilities than spell-casting, per se. Overall, the sober group had an enjoyable time with the rules, their characters, and would be willing to advance characters in the future. Again, this product is well worth the $1.00 investment as advertised!